A Quick Correct “Fewer”
I was sitting at a restaurant this morning and showed this comic to my waiter (Hi, Rich!) and he laughed. I saw a quick writing lesson, though; one I’ve mentioned before: when to use less and when to use fewer. Use “fewer” when you’re counting.
If they had used “stuff” instead of “things,” “less” would have been appropriate.
PS—yes, she should have said “there are” instead of “there’s.”
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
A Difficult Read with a Simple Goof
This post pulls out a mistake from an essay from the Hoover Institute that is heavy-duty reading. If you’re looking for something with more, um, substance than your average internet article (Heavier than even something from Scientific American), go read it. It’ll take a while. It’s about system security (such as computers, national infrastructure, and so on) and it’s good. Here’s the link. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Now having said all that, they spoil it (okay, some of it) by making an elementary error in grammar that introduces an ambiguity into something that ought not be ambiguous. The article is hard enough to follow already, (and most of the writing is actually fairly well done) so we don’t need more difficulties. Here’s the bad passage:
In the absence of purposeful disconnectedness at critical points, the mechanics of complexity then take hold so that we undergo “a switch between [continuous low grade volatility] to . . . the process moving by jumps, with less and less variations outside of jumps.”
Should that be “less and less variation,” or should it be “fewer and fewer variations”? At least they’re quoting someone else (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Long Peace is a Statistical Illusion,” accessed January 23, 2018, http:// docplayer.net/48248686–The–long–peace–is–a–statistical–illusion.html), but they need to fix the grammar here so we have at least a chance to know what they mean.
I mentioned this error a couple times in the past. Here’s one link: https://writing-rag.com/1863/another-lesson-about-less-and-fewer/ You can find a few more if you do a search in the upper right corner of the page.
Two Related Lessons
I mentioned this solecism before, but comics about two versions of it appeared on the same day, so I thought I’d do a little combining. The first is Understanding Chaos. The comic is funny because it uses the word for measuring when they are counting. It’s fewer Gyms, guys.
And the next comic, Soup to Nutz, is also funny because he uses the word for measuring when he’s counting. It’s number of legs, kid.
Sigh. I wish the comics was the only place I ever saw this goof.
A Standing Joke
The protagonist in Darren Bell’s strip Candorville is a writer. Hence, like me he’s somewhat of a grammar curmudgeon. Darren must figure that this lesson needs repeating, because I’ve seen this conversation before.
He’s absolutely correct, too. Myself, I prefer to shop at grocery stores whose express lane says “15 or fewer items.”
Counting or Measuring?
Here, is Mr. Tinkerson counting the number of sheets or measuring the amount of paper?
Either way makes sense. Same thing when you’re referring to time. Yes, we count the hours, but it took less than three hours to give blood Saturday. Since time is continuous, you can measure it as well as count the units. Same thing for distance.
So be careful, and think about whether you’re measuring or counting.
